This invention relates to board games in which a move is done by indicating a point on the board, and the state of the game is expressed in the state of the points. These include traditional games like Go, but also large number of other potential games, puzzles and exercises. The invention presents an electronic board to play these games, and a new kind of game to play on it.
Games like Go are played by each player, in his turn, adding a pebble to the board, on one of the points in a grid of lines drawn on the board, or in one of the squares on the board. These games have the advantages of being based on simple playing acts and being interesting intellectually. Their disadvantages are:
1) They require somewhat tricky movement when putting the stone on the board in the right place without disturbing other stones.
2) They tend to suffer from delays when a player is thinking on a move.
3) Some of the moves require additional ‘housekeeping’ operations, e.& taking stones of the board in Go.
4) The players need to keep the rules and do the counting of stones themselves, which puts extra demand on the players.
5) The stones are separate objects, which are easily lost.
Disadvantages 3–5 can be solved by programming a computer to display the board and stones. The program would be simple enough that it can be put on a small and cheap CPU, and hence be built into a standalone playing board. In principle, the computer could also limit the time allocated to each player, thus solving disadvantage 2.
The problem of input (disadvantage 1), however, is not solved so well by current electronic systems. That is because input for existing electronic systems is normally done through buttons, or other devices, which are separated from the display. For games where there is a small repertoire of possible different inputs this is acceptable, but for board games here are many possible different inputs (the number of points in the grid). Inputting a point on buttons off the display requires the players to perform some mental operation to convert the point they think about to the right input. This is relatively slow and error-prone process. For slow-going games that is very annoying but may be acceptable, but it makes it impossible to play fast on these systems, and for most people this is a decisive factor.
This disadvantage can be overcome by a making a hoard in which the input and the display are together, and these kind of boards started to appear, at least in the form of patent applications. However, the range of the games that can be played on these board is still limited. The current invention describes such a simple board and a novel games with many interesting variations which can be played on it.